Monday, September 22, 2014

Week 15: Ground Control, this is Major Tom. We've crossed the 100 day mark. Over and Onward and Upward.

Hello Family and friends! (This is a salutation. Commas are
not needed.)

This week has been another solid one in the ongoing
adventures of Elder Tucker in the wide world of
South Korea. It is crazy to think that my first transfer out here is on
the tail end and that I'm closer to October than to August. Time doesn't make
sense. It stopped making sense after I took a class on A Brief History of Time
but now it makes a different kind of nonsense. Make sense? Anyway, the Lord has
been so good to me and I have definitely seen his guiding influence in my life
this week. The blessing and neat part in life is that if you pray for eyes to
see them, the Lord's tender mercies are over all of us (check out 1 Nephi 1) and
they move our lives every day. He is so there and involved. Because He loves
us. I really feel that; I've felt it this week.

In some respects this week has been difficult. All of our
investigators either couldn't meet or didn't keep their commitments so that was
disappointing and discouraging but such is life. With our current pool of
investigators not swimming well, this week we've tried to get more people.
We've been talking to everyone we pass on the street. (Very literally in some
aspects.) And that is hard. Sometimes it is hard to open your mouth. I have a
hard time communicating and even understanding at times (especially the
toothless old men. And the kiddies.) but the trick in life is to just push on.
Push forward. Onward. Upward. I pray to God for strength to "courageously
act" on the prompting he sends to me and to just love and talk to everyone
I come in contact with. I do that whenever I just let someone walk on by or
when I realize afterwards that I was ignoring my bud the Holy Ghost. As I have
done that this week I've been so blessed to make strides forward in Korean. We
also have three or more solid potential investigators lined up for this
upcoming week. It's still tough but improvements are visible and increasing in
rapidity. Yeah! God is good. Just do what He says.

Cool Korean things I have neglected to tell you thus far.

McDonalds delivery. Yeah. It exists. And it's free if you
order a set meal. Korean fast food is superior to American. It was so cool to
open up my happy meal and go "wow! It really looks just like the picture I
ordered!" I ate the French fries with a blissful, satisfied feeling. I
think I realized that I've been missing salt. Good ol' sodium chloride. Korea
is great for many things, salt is not one. They prefer peppers. I usually
substitute seaweed to get my fix. Korean food, though, is delicious.

2.0

This week I have had so many rockstar quality personal
studies. (I realize now that rockstar might not be the best description for
awesome spirituality... :-) As I've prayed at night to know what I should
study the next day, I've really been led and the heavenly faucet that cranks
out revelation has been on high. I think my favorite study form the week was
comparing the similarities and parallel messages of Moroni 10:32 and Ether12:27. They are great! The two great keys from this week revolve around
receiving revelation; they're faith and humility. As you increase in these two
then your ability to feel the Holy Ghost will improve and you will receive more
revelations. Even "many revelations daily" as was the case with Nephi
and Lehi in the book of Helaman. The reverse of the message is that if you're
not receiving revelation then either your faith (and works for that matter) or
humility need to be checked and improved. Also I learned that faith and love
are synonyms. So great. Check out the verse comparison. They're great.

I love you and pray for you,

Onward and Upward

Elder Tucker

We got some grandma pants! All the grandmas were them! They're so stretchy and nice.